


The Moon Appearing in Retrograde

by Brigantine



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-19
Updated: 2011-08-19
Packaged: 2017-10-22 20:19:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/242182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brigantine/pseuds/Brigantine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Benton's a little off his game.  Ray takes up the slack.  Post CotW.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Moon Appearing in Retrograde

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a quick little Five Things thingie for Omphale, who yearned for fic featuring pretty men and five hard-ons. Easy, right? Yeah, except for the part where this turned into something completely different. Also, I apparently have a thing for Ray beating up vending machines. I have no idea why that is. There also might be an indirect quote from "The Replacements," for reasons that don't require, yadda yadda.

On Monday afternoon Benton wakes to find himself in a storage shed, with a headache on the verge of bursting out through the back of his skull and Ray Kowalski on the verge of panicking. _Claustrophobic,_ Benton remembers. He remembers that curling up together to conserve heat in the snow somehow made Ray forget how small their tent was. He's reasonably certain Ray hasn't forgotten it either. Perhaps some day he'll ask.

The storage shed is large for a shed, but constrictive for a pair of grown men. It's pitch-black inside and the air is warm and close, and sharp with the odors of rodents past and, unfortunately, present. Benton wonders how long he and Ray have been unconscious, but there's no way to know.

Nearby in the dark Ray is muttering to himself, "Calm down, calm down, calm down, oh fuck, Fraser, are you--"

"Ray," Benton calls softly. He grunts as Ray bumps into him, and tiny lightning bolts go off painfully behind his eyes.

"Sorry." Ray's fingers skitter over Benton's shoulder, his chest, his face. The palm of Ray's hand ghosts over Benton's mouth. Benton gasps.

"Sorry, sorry, you okay?" Ray swallows hard. His hand hesitates, then moves away.

Benton licks at the echo of Ray's skin on his lips, tastes the salt of sweat, of iron from the butt of Ray's weapon. "I'm all right, it's merely that Mr. Cantonelli's friend Hugo packs quite a wallop." He realizes that a button has been torn from his favorite blue shirt, and clucks irritably.

"Yeah, I hear that," Ray grumbles. "I'm fantasizing about a gallon of coffee and a giant size bottle of aspirin over here, side order of payback. Man, we're gonna be finding little bits and pieces of our star witness washing up on the beach from now until August if we don't get outta here pretty quick."

"I'm not sure we'll be in any condition to find anybody ever again, if we don't get out of here pretty quick," Benton agrees soberly.

"Also, I do not like the smell I'm smelling, and I'm pretty sure the walls are closing in, just so you know. Hell, they took my gun. I really hate competent hard guys."

Benton brushes bits of dirt and dead leaves from his jeans. "Might I assume you still have your credit card with you?"

"Never leave home without it."

Benton hears Ray rustling, tinkering at the door, for once patient. "If you hadn't become an officer of the law, I believe you would have made a very fine burglar."

"Y'know, my uncle Al said something almost like that to me, when I was about sixteen. A lot of it was in Polish though, and I'd just spent half the night out on Lakeshore with his Trans Am, so I'm not sure he meant it as a compliment. For the record, my uncle Al is a good guy, but he does not know how to treat a lady."

Then the door is open, and Ray motions Benton out into the fading afternoon light. "Pitter patter," Ray suggests. "I hope the wolf didn't have an accident in the back of my car."

Benton searches for his hat on the floor of the shed. "I'm sure he would be mortified."

~~~

On Thursday of the next week Benton wakes in the dark to find himself lying on a wooden floor, with the smells of stale marzipan and refined flour in his nostrils, a muzzy taste in his mouth, and his hands bound behind his back from wrist to elbow. It's extremely awkward and not a little painful. He blinks into the darkness, testing his bonds only to discover that his legs are bound from ankle to knee. This is discouraging.

"Ray?"

He can hear someone breathing, shifting about in the dark nearby. "Ray!"

There's a low groan in a familiar voice.

"Ray, can you--are you awake? Are you all right?"

Ray grunts. His voice is rough. "Wha… ow, wha'd they feed us?"

Benton runs his tongue around the inside of his mouth. "I can't be certain without a proper blood test of course--"

"Ugh."

"--but I suspect some form of benzodiazepine. From the manner in which I've been, well, trussed, our captors seem quite determined that we remain in situ." He sighs ruefully, "Apparently your hunch that something was 'hinky' at Volker's bakery was correct, Ray. I suspect that by arriving to interview Mr. Volker so near to closing time we interrupted him and Mr. Engelhardt planning yet another robbery."

"I'mma be sick," Ray complains.

"Er, yes. We should free ourselves as quickly as possible, not only for the sake of foiling yet another robbery, but in addition, to prevent our own premature demise."

"Premature demise," Ray grumbles. "I never had that problem before, and I am no way starting it now."

Benton blinks, "What?"

"The butcher, the baker, the bank robbers." Ray squirms loudly in the dark. "Who are we then, the owl and the pussycat? Do not answer that. Ow. Crap. Ow."

"Right, then. I'll just see where that small amount of light is coming from." Benton struggles onto his knees, promptly loses his balance, and tumbles down a set of wooden stairs, landing hard on his right shoulder, which gives way with a sickening crunch, and a surge of excruciating pain. _"Fuck!"_ slips out before he can catch it.

"Fraser? Fraser, dammit, where did you go? What did you do to yourself? Did you just say what I think you said?"

Benton refrains from sharply reminding his partner that contrary to popular conception he is not, nor has he ever been a monk, and that given how often he _hears_ certain colloquialisms it is unreasonable to believe that he wouldn't adopt the odd apt phrase in a moment of stress. Instead, he warns, "Watch out for the stairs, Ray."

He realizes that he has lost his left sneaker.

Above Benton, Ray thrashes, cursing animatedly at hard floors, at ropes…

"Ray…"

…knots…

"Ray!"

…evil bank-robbing bakers…

"Ray. The stairs, Ray, watch out--"

There are thumpings and bumpings and _slitherings_ , and a long stream of imaginative phrases, many of them physiologically impossible. Then Ray lands with a _whump_ at the bottom of the stairs in his big black boots, and crouches next to Fraser in the dim glow of light from beneath the door.

"Hi. Miss me?" He looks, for want of a better simile, like the cat that ate the canary.

"Ray, how did you--I couldn't. How did you get loose?"

"I'm a world-class shimmier," Ray tells him smugly.

Benton isn't sure whether to be envious, or relieved. He chooses to be vastly, entirely relieved, and to not imagine Ray lean and lithe and dancing his way out of bondage.

"I don't think they tied me up as much as they did you, anyway. Here, how've they got you wrapped up?"

"I'm sure they did, Ray. Ow! Shoulder!" The pain is intense, and it occurs to Benton that while he prefers to think of himself as being in his prime, the fact remains that he is not as young as he once was.

"Broken? Dislocated?"

"Dislocated. I expect you're aware that I once dislocated this shoulder intentionally while on a case with Ray Vecchio and, I might add, quite successfully, but this time…" He takes a deep breath, admitting reluctantly, "It hurts rather a lot, and I'm stuck as mud."

"I'll be careful." Ray's hands skate over him, warm through the flannel across his chest, warm over his shoulders, down his arms to his elbows, to his wrists.

It takes only a short while for Ray's clever fingers to solve the puzzle of the knots at Benton's wrists, and he helps him to sit up.

Ray takes Benton's face between his hands and holds him there, eye to eye. "Should we pop that shoulder back in before we get out of here, or would you rather wait 'til we get you to a hospital?"

Benton breathes through his mouth while Ray's thumb drifts back and forth over his dusty cheekbone. "I can do it myself."

Ray snorts, "I know you _can_ , Fraser. The point I am making here with my repeated use of the pronoun 'we' is that you don't _have to._ "

"Ow," Benton mutters, when Ray twists his arm across his chest.

"That was a horrible noise which I hope to never hear again," Ray declares, and he rubs Benton's neck a little, though it's unclear which of them he's comforting. Then he helps Benton find his shoe, and ties the laces for him.

As they leave the store room behind at last Ray frets, "I hope the wolf didn't start eating the upholstery in the Goat while we were stuck in here. Parked in front of a bakery all afternoon, and no way to get at anything? That is just not fair."

"No," Benton agrees, watching the setting sun glance off of Ray's left ear, "No it certainly isn't."

~~~

On Tuesday next, that is the day before today, Ray complained to Benton, "Major crimes, this is not. Somebody stole some little statue of what, a Leprechaun or something, and they put us on the case? Is Welsh punishing us? Is our solve rate not the best in the precinct? What did I do to piss him off this time? Just tell me Fraser, and I will try very, very hard to stop doing whatever it is." He waved a french fry earnestly and jabbed it toward Benton's roast beef sandwich for emphasis. "Unless it's that thing I did on Friday, which I'll probably do again."

Benton swallowed a mouthful of tepid black tea. "Just this morning you threatened to kick Harry Pope in the--"

"Head."

"Not if I recall correctly, and I'm confident that I do. The imagery you provided was quite vivid. But I don't think that's why Lieutenant Welsh assigned us this case."

Ray bit angrily into his grilled cheese. "He keeps ogling Frannie. As annoying as she is, she's way too good for him."

"Lieutenant Welsh?"

"Pope. Jeez, y'think I'd mind if it was Welsh? Hey, you think we could get Welsh to do some Frannie-ogling?"

"Ray!"

"I think he likes Frannie, really. He'd be good for her. Stable. God knows, with the baby on the way now she could use some--" Mid-wave he lost his grip on the french fry between his fingers. The long, slender bit of potato arced across the aisle and tapped Mariette the waitress on the back of the neck, causing her to turn suddenly and bump into a patron sitting at the counter, who dropped his coffee cup, which tumbled loudly and messily over the bar, then crashed onto the floor, causing Ed the cook to flinch and sling a half-cooked hamburger patty sideways, where it hit the wall and slid slowly down, leaving a mottled, greasy trail in its wake.

In the moment of stunned silence that followed, Benton hunched over his congealing vegetable medley and hissed, _"Raayy!"_

Ray regarded his own meal with tense suspicion. _"Whaaat?"_

"The statue that was stolen is a solid silver interpretation of Danu, or Dana, the Irish goddess of the Earth and Fertility. According to some legends, though of course as oral traditions do they've taken on a number of variations over the centuries--"

"Fraser."

"--she is the great Mother of the Tuatha de Danann, the progenitors of the Irish--"

"Fraser!"

"--but all of that is tangential, of course. The statue is wearing a torc set with emeralds--"

"A what?"

"Necklace. The necklace--"

"Well why didn't you just say necklace?"

"Because it's a torc."

Ray growled.

Sharp teeth, Benton thought to himself. Excellent canines.

"A torc is not made from linked chain," he explained doggedly. "It is generally made of either silver, gold or bronze, in the form of heavy, twisted wire, or it might be cast into its shape as a solid piece. Torcs were often decorated with--look, Ray, the point is that the statue, while not the original artifact, was painstakingly recreated from very expensive materials, and was never intended for sale."

Ray eyed him sourly. "When'd you learn all this? I was there the whole time, and all I got was 'Little statue, museum gift shop, go find it.'"

Benton sighed and rubbed briefly at his left temple. "You were somewhat preoccupied with trying to beat the lunch room vending machine into submission."

Ray's eyebrows flickered. "It was holding my Mars bar hostage. You can't let 'em get away with that kind of thing, Fraser, or they don't respect you. Then you get weak, and you can't catch the bad guys, and the whole system breaks down. Chaos and higgledy-piggledy in the streets." He dusted salt from his hands, laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles loudly. "'Kay, then. Did the perp steal the statue 'cause it's expensive, or 'cause it's Dana the fraternity goddess?"

"Pardon?" Benton's mind was still stuck on 'higgledy-piggledy.'

 

At some point on Wednesday evening, Benton wakes into the quavering candle glow of a small room he believes to be deep within the temple of The Sisters of the Sacred Earth, located conveniently at the rear of Fleischman's Vegan Deli and Car Wash. His recently dislocated shoulder aches. Upon further study of his situation he finds that he is bound, spread eagle on a twin sized bed with a fanciful iron frame, and while, thank God, no, not entirely naked, having been left in naught but his under shorts is small consolation. He wishes people would quit drugging him and/or hitting him over the head. It's become very tiresome. In addition he never got to finish his falafel sandwich, and that's a shame.

After wriggling about as well he might, and craning his neck to his furthest ability, neither of which gets him far at all, Benton finds no sign of his clothing. There is no sign of Diefenbaker, either, and Benton entertains some hope that the wolf remains at large and has gone to fetch Ray for assistance.

Benton frets over what the Sisters may have done with his hat. Sister Mary Magna Folia in particular seemed quite taken with it just this afternoon, when Benton and Ray were making inquiries.

 _"Fraser, you got that look in your eye. Do not go wingin' it solo in there. Those 'charming' young ladies are hidin' something queer, and that's besides the robes and the candles and the weird weedy things hangin' all over the place."_

 _"Those are medicinal herbs, Ray."_

 _"Yeah, pull the other one."_

 _"The other one what?"_

 _"Fraser, sometimes you make my brain hurt._ Stay away _from there until we can get a warrant, or at least Huey and Dewey to back us up."_

Ray is going to be very annoyed with him.

As far as Benton can ascertain, the room consists of the bed upon which he is bound, a small table and a wooden chair - red oak if Benton's not mistaken, and by the lingering scent of beeswax and the design carved into the back... He reminds himself that the spindle-sided crib he's building for Francesca in his living room is ready for a last sanding and a final rubbing of oil. But never mind.

At the far end of the room is a four-shelf book case filled to nearly overflowing, its top scattered with lit candles, and a tall chest of drawers with... Ah. A statue of the goddess Dana, approximately 22 centimeters tall, wrought in silver and emeralds.

Ray is going to be very, _very_ annoyed with him. Followed by insufferably smug, Benton has no doubt.

In the meantime, Benton wonders why the Sisters have detained him here, and why have they mostly undressed him? He supposes that they consider him less of an escape risk if he is unable to locate his trousers. The concept of wandering the streets of Chicago in the wee hours of the morning sans accoutrements is, Benton admits, effectively discouraging. The possibility that his hat may even now be suffering frivolous handling hardly bears thinking on.

The infernal quiet and Benton's fretful imaginings are suddenly broken by a great to-do just outside the room. He can hear a crowd of feminine voices, at first angry, then protesting, then pleading, and then there is a male voice, wonderfully familiar and fierce with outrage, and then the door bashes open, bounces once on its hinges, and outlined in the light from the hallway is Ray, his silhouette unmistakable with its wiry boxer's stance and electric hair. Ray strides into the room, the Sisters of the Sacred Earth scattering behind him in a flurry of alarmed squeaks and blue ceremonial gauze.

Ray glowers angrily down at Benton, his eye-glasses sparking in the firelight. "You! Did I not warn you?"

From somewhere within the temple Benton can hear Detective Dewey advising gleefully, "Chicago PD, ladies! Hold it right there!"

"You did, Ray. You warned me," Benton gibbers, "but I didn't listen, and I am terribly sorry!" Benton flexes his bound hands. His bare chest, his naked belly rise slowly up, and down again.

Crouching over Benton to untie him from the bed frame, Ray smells of worn leather, engine grease and the naptha soap he uses to clean his hands. "Partners, remember that? You plus me. Not just you, haring off by yourself into Weirdo Wonderland."

"But I had Diefenbaker with me." The metal frame rattles as Benton sits up.

"Dief drugged himself on the rest of your dinner, and I got him passed out in the car. Jesus, you two!"

Benton makes a mental note to speak to Diefenbaker about priorities. "If Diefenbaker was indisposed, how did you know I was in need of assistance?"

Ray's expression contorts into the sort of snarl that has never boded well. "One of the Sisters called the precinct, got hold of Welsh. Apparently _she_ has a problem with _non-consensual relations._ "

"Non...? But." His stomach lurches as the implication sinks in. "Oh," he whispers. "Oh. But they seemed so harmless. Eccentric of course, but essentially..." He wraps his arms around himself, curling in. "Obviously I was wrong."

Angry and impatient, Ray fishes out his pocket knife. The sharp blade flickers in the dim light as he slashes the silk ropes at Benton's ankles.

Benton swings his legs over the edge of the bed, hunching over and rubbing wearily at his face.

Ray stands staring down at him, frayed loops of scarlet rope clenched in his left fist. His voice sounds raw. "Christ, Benton, you need to be more careful!"

Shivering, Benton leans for comfort against Ray's thigh, lean, solid and warm through the frayed denim. He feels the drift of touch on his hair, sweeping down the back of his head. A trembling heat presses between his shoulders, the palm of Ray's hand.

"I'll be more careful," Benton promises.

"Yeah. Yeah, you do that for me, okay?"

Benton takes a long, slow breath. "I don't suppose you noticed my clothes on the way in here?"

Ray hesitates, then turns away and strides toward the hallway, shouting, "Hey! Anybody here seen a great big Canadian hat?"

May, Benton considers, has been something of a difficult month. He watches Ray disappear stage left and hopes that June might be better.

~~~

On the first Saturday of June, after struggling for approximately 20 minutes before reaching the conclusion that he is merely worsening his situation, Benton finds cause and opportunity to spend a quiet moment reflecting on his life. And then the moment dissolves into the rapid thudding of footsteps racing up the stairs, and the door of the Queen's bedroom opens and Ray stands at the threshold, gaping.

"E'ro, Ray," Benton greets. It's not easy to form "Hello, Ray" around the gag in his mouth, but he's been brought up to be polite, hogtied on the floor or otherwise.

"Jeez." Ray shakes his head in a familiar expression of disbelief, and Benton watches him reach into his pocket for his knife.

Hands freed, Benton loosens the knot at the back of his neck, licking dry lips as he rolls squelchily to a sitting position. "As you can imagine I'm very glad to see you, Ray."

Ray snorts. "Yeah, I imagined, but not the half of it, obviously."

Benton cracks his neck loudly. "I wasn't sure whether Constable Zuckerman was able to summon assistance. Is everyone all right downstairs?"

He gratefully accepts the blanket Ray retrieves from a nearby closet. It smells of lavender and Ivory Soap, and he hopes Inspector Raynes need never know.

"Zuckerman managed to call the station before they tied him to the staircase and stuck balloons all over him."

"Stuck balloons?"

Ray makes a peculiar and vaguely sexual gesture in the air. "Static electricity, Fraser. If you rub a balloon over a wool uniform, it sticks."

"Of course, yes. Oh dear, poor Zuckerman."

"He's pretty mortified. You oughta be nice to him for a while. Specially since you didn't fare any better, dignity-wise." Ray rubs at the back of his head, grimacing and obviously trying not to _look._

Benton pulls the blanket more closely around himself and nods ruefully. "While I sympathize with Mr. Danvers' disappointment at having been let go from his position as seafood chef, I believe he is overreacting by invading what is essentially a sovereign nation and holding a head caterer and five members of the Belgian International Scrabble team hostage."

"You really shouldn't try to reason with angry catering clowns with guns," Ray advises.

"Or juggling pins."

"Or juggling pins. Those neither. That's gonna be a hell of a shiner there, my friend."

Benton gingerly prods at the swollen skin around his throbbing left eye. "Yes."

Ray hunkers on the floor and peers at Benton earnestly. Benton guesses what he's about to say before he asks, for the seemingly hundredth time over the past year, "Fraser, are you sure you're happy this far away from Tugabugtruck?"

"Yes, Ray..." Benton begins, also for the seemingly hundredth time, but then he stops, and he takes up that lost moment of reflection, while Ray fidgets and looks worried, and tries to be patient, and at last Benton says, "I made my _own_ place here, Ray."

Ray shakes his head, "Well, yeah, but. Sorry, I don't get it."

"These are not my father's footsteps," Benton explains. "Chicago is noisy and noxious and filled with every variety of criminal, and people - including you - tend more toward rudeness than not, but against all expectations, both mine and the RCMP's, I've learned to appreciate the virtues and the challenges in all of that. I've put down roots here, Ray. I like it here, and I'm not going anywhere."

Ray frowns at him, considering this, and then nods decisively, accepting him at his word in a way that most people don't - that is, that like Ray Vecchio, Ray Kowalski always seems to know whether Benton is skimping on the truth. "Cool," Ray smiles.

"Though the occasional holiday to Tugabugtruck might not go amiss."

Ray flashes him a sharp grin. "You tell me when, I'll start packin' the pemmican. You know I'm ready."

Benton considers this, how strong Ray has remained since their return from the rigors of the north. "I don't suppose you've seen my uniform anywhere?"

"Zuckerman is sobbing and clutching its sullied remains to his bosom even as we speak." Ray nods toward Benton's nether regions. "That there is an egregious waste of banana cream pie."

Benton blushes. "Yes. Yes. It... it was also very cold. Ray?"

"Yeah Frase?"

"Might I request that we never speak of this incident, ever again?"

Ray sucks thoughtfully at his right canine. "You know, I'd be happy to give you that, Benton buddy, except the way things have been going lately, I might have to yell at you about it next week."

Benton sighs. "Understood."

~~~

Exactly six days later, Ray comments dryly, "Fraser my friend, you really know how to show a guy a great time on a Friday night."

Benton tugs at the rope tying his wrists to a rafter in Elmer Consadine's barn. "I'm deeply sorry about this, Ray. It appears I badly misjudged Miss Merriweather's motivation."

"It appears so," Ray grunts from, Benton calculates, 2.57 meters behind and to his right. "I'll grant you though, she is a very attractive girl. I don't blame you for gettin' a little distracted there. Well okay yeah I kinda do, 'cause didn't Dief and I both tell you there was something weird about that story with the monkeys and the pirate treasure?"

"I was not _distracted,_ " Benton corrects primly. "I was attempting to assist a young lady I believed to be in genuine peril."

"Pirate treasure, Fraser. Last time there was pirate treasure, you and me almost ended up toxic soup. Also, didn't you ever see 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'?"

"I'm afraid I don't see what that has to do with Yolanda Merriweather and her monkey Lolita."

"The monkey, Fraser. The monkey in 'Raiders' pretended to be friends with Marian, but he was a bad, bad monkey. I never even did like monkeys. Except for gorillas. Gorillas are cool."

"Gorillas are apes, Ray. Not monkeys."

"See? There y'are. Monkeys got them beady little eyes. They're a lot like clowns, actually. You just never know what they're gonna do."

"I'd appreciate it if you were to refrain from reminding me about--"

"Told you I might have to bring it up, Fraser. This? You and me stuck in a barn in the middle of nowhere, far away from Huey and Dewey and _screaming distance,_ this is you believing every sob story you hear, and trying to make the world a better place for giant tattooed homicidal weight-lifters and pretty drug-smuggling girls in tights and sequins."

Benton twists, trying to get a better view of Ray. The effort proves quite useless, as his feet have been tied down to the rear wheel of a decaying tractor - John Deere, 1948, if he's not mistaken - and in spite of his best efforts he remains just as Elmer and his foreman, Tiny Larry Nicoletti, left him. It's all very vexing. "But Ray--"

"You know what, Fraser, for a while here I been thinking you maybe just got some dry-rot in the seventh house of your rising Capricorn, or something."

"Dry what in my where?" There is a hollow clomping sound behind him. It seems vaguely familiar.

"But then I started thinking back, over all the years I've known you, and what I find, and I'm pretty sure Vecchio would back me up on this, is that you bring most of this on yourself."

Benton's voice spikes with indignation, "Pardon me?"

"And don't take this the wrong way, but I can kind of see why Vecchio wanted to put some distance between you and me and him and head for Florida."

Benton thrashes resentfully in his bonds, grunting, "What exactly are you saying, Ray, that Ray felt his life was under such immediate threat in my vicinity that he needed to get away from--that he needed to protect Stella from--"

"See, here's Vecchio with the golden bullet path to retirement, and his shiny new Stella, and he figures as much as he's devoted to you, y'know as a friend--"

"I realize things haven't been going precisely as planned on my part recently--"

"--he's thinking that he'd like to stop getting shot and blown up and stuff, and settle down to a daily routine that's slightly more leisure-oriented and a lot less life-threatening. So he moves to Florida." Ray grunts, huffs, and curses in remarkably well-enunciated Italian.

"I admit that for the past five weeks, I may have been slightly off-step--"

"And while I do not get the--ow, son of a--bowling alley thing, with the rolling a giant marble down a--never mind, the thing is, I can see his point. You ask for trouble. Which should not be news to anybody by now, but just so's we're clear."

Benton fumes. "Fine, I'll give you the incident with the Sisters of the Sacred--"

"I have known you for what, about three years now, three very _exciting_ years, and I am telling you, you mock the fates, Fraser. Mock the fates, taunt destiny, moon the Norns."

"I--the Norns?"

"What, you think I don't read? Yeah, okay, I spent most of Mrs. Pinkerton's English class thinking up ways I could make Vinnie LeGrange quit flirting with Stella and move to Albania, but the Viking saga stuff was cool. And you, it's like you're always trying to find the quickest way to Valhalla. You need to quit it. Valhalla is a very groovy concept, and all that, but I am not ready to feast with the heroes of yore just yet."

There is a scrabbling sound above Benton, and a drifting down of dust and straw, and when he squints upward he finds Ray peering down at him, asserting, "I got perfectly good feasting right here."

Benton goggles. "How did you get up there?"

Grinning down at him from the barn's shadows, bright and mysterious as the Cheshire Cat, Ray answers cryptically, "Boots."

He levers himself over the rafter, landing lightly and quietly in front of Benton, who realizes that Ray is sock-footed. "You wriggled right out of your boots. That's very clever of you and... remarkably acrobatic."

"Sting like a butterfly, float like a bee," Ray sing-songs as he disappears back behind the tractor.

"Ray?"

There is the sound of shuffling and stomping, and then Ray reappears in his favorite big black boots, and he bends down to loosen the knots at Benton's ankles.

"Wasn't that supposed to be 'Float like a butterfly--'"

"Shut up," Ray scolds half-heartedly, and then he reaches into the waistband of his baggy old jeans, lowering them dangerously, enticingly, and he pulls out his pocket knife from a place Benton can hardly risk imagining.

With a few quick slices he cuts the rope holding Benton's arms high, but before Benton can lower them Ray darts in, wriggling into the snug circle of Benton's startled embrace to kiss him lightly on the mouth.

Benton's tongue flickers over his lips, and he tries to keep his heart from swimming up into his throat like a spawning salmon while Ray snuggles up tight, his breath warm and intimate against Benton's ear. "Um. Ray?"

"Am I wrong?" Ray shimmies, and drapes his arms comfortably around Benton's shoulders. "See, I've been thinking, and I think I am one of those roots you been working to put down."

Ray smells like pizza and chocolate and sweaty detective and faintly of wolf saliva, and Benton could no more prevaricate at this moment than leap to the moon, so he admits, feeling terrified, but mostly, surprisingly, ecstatic, "You're my taproot, Ray. The one I don't think I could manage without. How did you know?"

Ray shifts, rubbing his thigh lightly between Benton's legs.

Benton squeaks, and tries very hard not to ask him to do that again.

"You wear tight jeans," Ray teases. "'Course, those times you got stuck in your skivvies were pretty enlightening, too."

"Oh. Oh, dear. Um, not to ruin the moment, but from my perspective those events were rather more humiliating than romantic."

Ray pulls away just far enough for neither of them to be able to focus on the other's face. He is, after all, limited by the circumference of Benton's arms, which is perfectly acceptable as far as Benton is concerned.

"At first I thought maybe the jazz you were on was about the whole near-death thing, what with you being you, and then I thought maybe it was about gettin' tied up and being half-naked--"

"Ray!"

"Yeah, yeah, liar liar, pants on fire. Then I realized it wasn't the near-death thing at all, or the rope or the naked. It was me."

Benton clears his throat nervously. "You, ehm, observed..."

Ray snorts dismissively. "You're the one taught me tracking. Thousand Inuit words for snow. It's all in the details."

Grinning helplessly, Benton rests his forehead against Ray's, his arms stretching tight across the lean muscle of Ray's back. "So you _were_ listening."

"Yeah," Ray breathes, edging impossibly closer. "Yeah, I been paying attention to your details for quite a while now. The rope and the naked, those were just frosting on the polar bear. You, my Canadian friend, are unhinged and a freak. Not that I'm complaining."

Benton nuzzles the side of Ray's face. "That's very open-minded of you, Ray."

"Us poets are like that."

Then Ray kisses him again, this time long and deep and sour coffee-flavored, and Ray is warm and squirmy, as Benton has learned Ray tends to be in snug situations. At last a small, annoying part of Benton's brain makes him pull reluctantly away and remind, "Don't we have evil-doers to apprehend?"

Ray snickers. "Evil-doers?"

"Bank robbers, jewel thieves, heroin smugglers masquerading as carnies, that sort of thing."

Ray sighs, duty-bound, and eels himself loose. He takes the rope between Benton's wrists in one hand, snatches Benton's Stetson from the ragged seat of the 1948 John Deere with the other, and leads him out of Elmer Consadine's barn as though leading a horse by his bridle.

"Ah, Ray? Ray, my wrists, they're still--Ray, could you lend me your knife, or you know, cut me loose?"

"Yeah, yeah, in a bit," Ray says. "Got my phone under the front seat of the Goat. I can call Welsh, tell him where Consadine and his pals are going to meet with their buyer. Then I need to have my wicked way with you in the back seat."

"Wicked way?" Benton clarifies hopefully.

"Priorities, Benton buddy. Priorities. It's June, and you and me been waitin' all winter for the growing season, here. Though y'know we're totally screwed if the wolf figures out how to open my refrigerator."

"Indeed," Benton agrees absently, following Ray into the starry summer night, and happily recalling Ray's earlier complaint about them being well out of screaming distance.

 

\--#--


End file.
